Now I Know
by Skalidra
Summary: When Jason faces off with Bruce, over the Joker, the explosion that ends it isn't as effective as he wanted. Bruce is alive, and Jason is unconscious but injured. So Bruce takes him back to the Cave, where's he's faced with the question of what to do with a man as deadly, skilled, and furious as Jason is. Answers are never easy, and compromise is the only solution. - No pairings.


Hello again! So this is another prompt, from White Morticia, for Jason & Bruce, number 33; "Please don't do this." Oh yes, there's some lovely angst ready to be done right there. And I did.

So, this is an alternate timeline where instead of Jason running off after the face-off with Bruce (with the Joker, after the explosion), he gets knocked out by the blast, and it's him that Bruce finds instead of the Joker. Basically, Jason doesn't vanish off the face of the Earth while Bruce deals with Bludhaven being destroyed, and getting the Joker back in Arkham, etc. (Also, Bludhaven didn't blow up. Because that was dumb.) Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

The explosion still rings in my ears. The metal sheet pressed down over me — don't know where that came from, don't know how my luck survived this night — is hot, not enough to burn but enough to make me feel the fire that licked at the other side. My cape protects me from it, and it protects the slightly smaller, curled body underneath my own. I shake my head, trying instinctively but vainly to clear my ears, and then shift my aching arm to reach across my son's body. That arm took the brunt of the hit, but the damage isn't that bad.

Not like the slice through the side of Jason's throat. The one _I_ put there. I shove the sheet of metal off of the two of us, and barely do more than spare a glance to make sure no one else is around to be a threat before I turn to him. He's unconscious, but that wound across his throat is sluggishly pumping blood. Mechanically, but with an urgency that stems from the thought of losing him a _second_ time, I pull first aid supplies from my belt and set to work temporarily patching the gash. He doesn't even twitch.

When I'm sure it will hold, at least until something better can be done, I carefully tilt his head up so I can see the other side of it. There's a trickle of blood from the side of his skull, near his temple, but it doesn't look serious. _Extremely_ careful prodding of the area around the scratch reassures me that his skull itself is still intact. The impact with the ground was enough to knock him out, but not enough to seriously injure him. He'll be alright.

I ease to my knees, and then gather Jason into my arms. He's heavy, and my arm isn't happy about lifting him, but I force it to work. I cradle his head against my right shoulder, getting to my feet. He's dead weight, but at least that means he's not fighting me.

I manage to get my hand back to my belt, to press the command that will call my jet to me, and then start to carefully make my way across the wreckage of the building. At least the building still seems fairly stable, even if this chunk of it is destroyed and open to the air. If it had fully collapsed, it's unlikely either of us would have survived. No, _any_ of us.

Joker is in this somewhere; he has to be. He was here when the explosives went off, and I dove for Jason, not him. He must be buried in this rubble somewhere. A large, vengeful part of me hopes that he's died this time. That he's finally, truly, _paid_ for everything he's done to us over the years. Paid for what happened to the boy I knew, and what that turned the man in my arms into. Jason's not that old, _god_ he's barely nineteen by my count, but there's no denying that he's become a man.

Taller and thicker than Dick, but not as much as me. Strong, skilled, trained in all the deadly kinds of combat I know but never use. I never thought that Jason would ever use them either. I never thought any of my sons would cross the line the way that Jason has, I thought I taught them better. But Jason came back and threw it all in my face; he threw away everything I taught him except the parts that helped him hurt me. Before this I could never have imagined one of my sons turning on me willingly. Now I know it's a grim possibility.

I look up when I hear the jet, and move aside as the autopilot lands it in the rubble. The building makes a cracking, creaking noise that makes me reach for my grapnel, but it holds. Getting Jason in the jet is another struggle, but eventually I manage it. It hurts to do, but I strap him down inside the passenger seat. If he wakes up, I don't know what he'll do. He'll be at my back, and I can't fight inside the jet _and_ keep us from crashing at the same time. Probably. So I restrain him enough that I'm almost sure that he won't break free without giving me enough warning to deal with it.

The first thing I do once the jet is in the air — the building somehow holds through us taking off too — is put through a call to Gordon. He answers after a few rings.

" _Explosion in old Gotham?"_ he asks, sounding a little resigned and maybe a bit irritated.

"Joker is either in the rubble or in the area, tell your men to be careful."

" _And you're not sticking around because…?"_

"Other business," I answer shortly. "Red Hood's been dealt with, I'm transporting him to a prison that will hold him." Before he can ask anything else, or I have to lie to any further, I end the call. It won't win me any points with him, but I don't want to have to create a cover off the top of my head. Gordon might have guessed that the Red Hood was something different than the normal costumed villain, but he didn't know anything concrete. I'd like to leave it that way.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with Jason.

* * *

The computer is the first thing to warn me that he's waking up. His heartbeat quickens, and I shut down all the information on my screens before I get out of my chair and head for him. Alfred and I stripped him of all his weapons and armor — each new scar on his skin tightened my gut a little further — and then dressed him in some basic clothing. It's Dick's, and it's a little tight on him, but the fabric stretches enough to work. The leather straps tying him down to the table are sturdy enough to hold even me, so they should work on him too.

I cross the room to stand over him, watching his face tighten as the sedatives finally let him go. I sedated him as soon as I was sure that it was safe, and to keep him under while Alfred and I worked. The last thing either of us needed was Jason waking up in the middle of Alfred stitching the gash in his neck closed.

His brow draws into a frown, the corners of his mouth tugging down. It's easy to see pain in the expression. Then he shifts, his eyes dragging open. He stares blankly at the ceiling for a moment, and then I can see him tense, see the sharp realization in his gaze. He jerks against the restraints, and then his head twists and his gaze snaps in my direction.

"Bruce," he gasps. For a moment, I wish that I'd left my suit on. It would be easier to face him with my cowl still on. " _No_ ," he snarls, gaze flicking around the cave. Until his head twists the other way, and then he stiffens with a low groan. I glance down to make sure that he hasn't popped the stitches across his throat.

My jaw feels welded shut, but I step forward and reach out to touch his closer shoulder. "Jason," I manage to grit out, "stay still. You were hurt, and—"

He rounds on me, snapping his teeth close enough to my hand that I instinctively yank it back. "Don't you dare talk like you had fucking _nothing_ to do with it," he spits up at me. The _fury_ in his voice is like a knife to the chest. "You don't get to distance yourself like that." His hands clench, he _strains_ against the restraints for a few moments, and then he gives a frustrated snarl of sound and falls back against the table. The shudder catches me by surprise, and so does the way he squeezes his eyes shut and tilts his head back. It almost looks like fear.

When he goes still, and then shudders into something like surrender, I can't help speaking. "Jason—"

"You cut my throat." His voice is quiet, and when he opens his eyes he almost looks _stunned_. His gaze turns to me, and I can't see past that disbelieving edge, and the _pain_. He stares at me, and then his head twitches side to side in a small shake, and he gives a hollow bark of laughter. It's almost hysterical. "You _cut my throat_ to save the Joker." He jerks his gaze away from me, up towards the ceiling. "Guess that answers all my questions."

"That wasn't it," I try and argue. "If you'd given me any other choice, I would have taken it."

Another bark of laughter. Jason's eyes clench shut. "Go to hell, Bruce. I _did_ give you other choices, you just didn't take them."

"Killing you or killing the Joker weren't _choices_ , Jason." I try and keep my voice steady, try and communicate how much everything in me _refuses_ the idea of either of those options. Killing is too easy. It would be _so_ easy to decide that everyone who does evil deserves death, and that's not true. Who could stop me if I let myself slide down that slope?

He rounds on me again, shouting, "Yes they were!" There's a wild edge to his tone and eyes that almost makes me step back. Until it melts into desperation, with an agonized edge. "And you chose," he breathes out. "Never aim for the neck; too much blood, too much risk. _You_ taught me that, Bruce." His mouth twists into something too grim and pained to be a smile. "Did you do all the calculations in that head of yours? Try and figure out how likely it was that I'd bleed out before you got to me? Chances couldn't have been good. Too narrow a target, too much possibility for error. You picked the possibility of killing me, to save the psychopathic murderer that killed me the first time around."

"No, I—"

"You _chose_ ," he presses, and then the imitation of a smile fades away. "Do whatever you're going to." He turns his head the other direction to lie flat against the table. It stretches out his neck, bares the pad that covers the stitches across his throat. "Lock me up and throw away the key, Bruce. _Bury_ me; you're good at that."

My breath rushes out of me like he's struck me in the solar plexus, and I take a step back. " _Jason_."

He shakes his head, and then looks up at me. " _Damn_ you," he whispers. "I'm so done with your hypocritical, blind, _bullshit_ , Bruce. I'm done with all of this. I'm going to tear your _fucking_ world down around your ears if you give me even half a chance, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

" _Please_ ," I beg softly, "don't do this, Jason. It doesn't have to be like this."

He gives a sharp edged grin that's too wild to be real; I can still see the _pain_ in his eyes. "I'm going to _hurt_ you, Bruce, I'm going to make you _bleed_." Another hollow laugh, and my attention gets caught by the bright, unnatural glint of green to his eyes. By the unhinged quality of the laugh, and his grin. "But since you're so _fucking_ obsessed with people's lives, how about I don't kill you Bruce?" That grin drops, _instantly_. "The Joker left _me_ alive to watch that bomb count down. It's not mercy when you've taken everything else." His mouth curls into a snarl, baring teeth and never losing that green tinge to his eyes. "We'll see how much _you_ want to live once you've lost everyone you care about. How many deaths can you keep your no-killing rule through? Tim? Barbara? Dick?"

I'm shouting, " _No!_ " before I realize it, jerking forward to loom over him.

His hands curl to fists, and he meets my anger. "Yeah, it's always the _precious_ golden boy, isn't it? You'd kill for _him_."

My hands clench too, but I hold his gaze. "You _won't_ hurt them," I promise him. "I won't let you."

"What are you going to do?" he asks, with another flash of those teeth. "There's not a prison in the world that could hold me. Not with your training, and what I've learned on my own." He jerks against the restraints, leans up towards me as much as he can, his shoulders rounding. "You don't have the _stomach_ to keep me tied down or drugged forever; it'd be as good as killing me and we both know you won't do _that_ either. You're shit out of options, _Bruce_."

No, I'm not. I have one left. It's not a good solution, and it's definitely not a permanent one, but it will work. At least until I can come up with a better idea.

I force myself not to swallow. Force myself to lower my voice and keep it quiet when I tell him, "Then I'll keep you here." I can see the flash of surprise on his face, then the disbelief.

"Here?" he echoes, staring at me. " _Where?_ You don't have cells down here."

I step back, turn towards one of the medical cabinets and the basic supplies laid out over the top of it. I have to shove out a breath before I can close my hand around one of the prepped shots of our most common sedative. Jason spits out a swear; I can hear him start to struggle against the restraints. They won't give, and with my face turned away I take a moment to close my eyes before I look back at him.

"Things have changed." I check to make sure the syringe is working, and that the dose in it is right for someone of Jason's height and weight. It is. "My cells will hold you."

" _No_." Jason's voice has a tinge of desperation. "You can't. You can't just lock me away!" I head for his legs; they're moving less than any other main artery point. " _Damn_ you, Bruce, no! I won't live my fucking life in your damn cage!" One of my hands holds him down, and I pull the leg of the loaned pants up to bare his calf. The needle goes in smoothly, and he's strong but with the added help of the restraints I can hold him still enough to get it in the vein I want. "You son of a bitch! Don't!"

I pull it out once the shot is in his system, and then turn my back. He's shouting at me, but I brace both hands on the cabinet and lean into it, trying to ignore the sound. His pulse is up, his heart's beating fast; the sedative should circle through his system and knock him out within a few minutes.

"Bruce! No, you motherfucking _bastard_ don't you dare! You can't just lock me away in a cage! You can't!" A rattle of metal, and then an inarticulate cry of rage. "Just have the guts to kill me, you asshole! _Kill_ me! Locking me in a cage isn't any better than that you piece of shit! It's not—!" I can hear him gasp; that's the sedative kicking in. "No. _No_. God, you motherfu— Fuck!" A groan. I clench my hands down against the table and try not to lower my head any further. " _No_." His voice is weaker now, just slightly slurred. "Don't. God, _don't_."

I wait until I'm absolutely sure he's out. Only after that do I dare turning around.

* * *

"This won't work." Dick's voice is tight, unhappy, maybe even a little horrified. He's staring into the cell Jason is in, his jaw clenched, posture stiff, gaze tracking our new prisoner. " _God_ , Bruce, keeping him in there is…"

"I know," I manage to get out.

Jason is pacing now. When he first woke up, before Dick got here, he screamed. Screamed insults, and curses, and wordless sounds of fury and pain. He slammed his fists against the walls until his knuckles were bloody and bruised; I wouldn't be surprised if he broke a few of his fingers, so I'll have to look at those next time I get a chance. After that he scoured every inch of my cell and everything in it, obviously hunting for anything he could use as a weapon, a tool, or a way out.

Now he's just moving. Restless, predatory, gaze fixed on the one-way wall that lets us see him, but not the other way around. That's changeable. I got Clark to help me design it, with some input from a few other key members of the League. My personal cells are just a little more secure than the ones in the Watchtower, though not designed with anyone's specific powers in mind. I can change the wall to be clear, to let him see us, and the technology used to build it is alien, so the door itself is utterly seamless. It will hold him, no matter how skilled he thinks he is, or what he knows.

It's not a large cell though, and certainly not one with any kind of real comfort to it. It was designed to hold one of us if that was ever needed, but on a _temporary_ basis. Comfort wasn't the point. It looks too small for Jason, even though it's almost fifteen feet by ten. Three strides of his long legs gets him from one side to the other, and then he has to make a sharp turn and head the other direction. It's uncomfortably reminiscent of a beast in a cage.

"There's no other option?" Dick asks quietly. " _Anything?_ "

I shake my head. "There's no prison that could hold him; not for long. Constant restraints, or constant drugs, would keep him manageable, but that— That's no better than killing him. This will hold him for now, until we can figure something out." I'm just slightly behind Dick, and I reach out to touch his shoulder. "Come look at this."

It takes him a moment, but Dick follows me over to the computer. I pull up the feeds of Jason, and the information I've compiled that has my latest discovery.

"There's something wrong with Jason," I start, and Dick snorts.

"Yeah, I've picked that up. He tried to _kill_ you, Bruce, I know that something's wrong with him." Dick's voice is just a little sarcastic, but I recognize that he's still tensed and severely unhappy with how things are going. I won't hold the tone against him.

"Not like that. Yes, Jason seems to have a small collection of mental troubles, perhaps even diagnosable illnesses, or trauma, but there's something beyond that." I pull up my comparison images, letting them fill the screen. "Something is interfering with his mind, or at least influencing him somehow."

Dick leans over my shoulder with a small sigh, but his fingers squeeze my upper arm. "Alright, what am I looking at?"

"Here," I point out the leftmost picture. "Those are his eyes. Normal light, normal shot, no tampering of any kind. Blue-green, with an emphasis on the blue. Now, look at the second picture." I can feel him tilt his head a bit, and give it a few moments before I ask, "See it?"

"Yeah," he answer, "I see it. His eyes are _significantly_ greener in the second shot. Brighter green too, not the darker background shade from the first shot. And that third one, there's almost no blue in his eyes at all. What's the difference in situation here? What _is_ that?"

"My best guess? Anger." I shift a bit; tap my fingers against the console of the computer. "First one is a shot from before I brought him in. Just a random shot we got lucky in catching; wasn't related to any encounter. The second is from when he was strapped to one of the tables in here; he was angry, that's when I first noticed something was off. The third is from when he woke up inside the cell. He was furious."

"So whatever this is, it's either feeding off of or enhancing anger? Weird. What do you think? Magical, mystical, something in between?"

"I put a call out to Zatanna," I tell Dick, as I shut down the file and turn to him. "If it's mystical, she should be able to tell us what we're dealing with. If not…" I pause, not sure how to finish the sentence.

So Dick finishes it for me. "We'll deal with it. You really think we can help him?"

I part my mouth to say ' _yes_ ,' to promise Dick that no matter what I'll bring his brother back to him, but the words stick in my throat. I can't promise something that could so easily be a lie. Especially not to Dick, and not about Jason. I have no idea if what's affecting him is mystical, or scientific, or some horrid mix of the two. I also don't know if it's just enhancing what he already thinks, or if it's actually influencing his mind. If it's not, and if this is just who Jason has become…

"We can try."


End file.
